Sunday, August 8, 2010

Holy Salt Chautauqua Man!

Great news on this lovely Sunday afternoon folks! As I sit here and swill down the last of my cold brewed iced coffee and listening to a very smooth Chet Baker Pandora station with my ear buds wedged in deep, I can't help but keep reflecting on the very sexy kiln load we emptied out this morning. We had a solid firing, a good salting , and a nice slow cooled reduction thanks to our visiting faculty member and sausage grilling compadre Justin Lambert. (Justin's haul below with some of my own and students' in the back ground.)

The down firing created fantastic, almost metallic like sheens on the shinos as well as satin smooth surfaces. Needless to say everybody was very pleased. All the students involved had some real beauties come out of the firing and I was especially stoked with several of my pieces. I was hoping to snap a few pics of the students work but I guess that will have to happen later because they all scarfed up their work and squirreled it away. Some was bound for the craft fair happening down in one of the parks here in Chautauqua and some was just squirreled away.Pictured above are John Moses Girdler from Maryville College in Tenn., Justin Lambert, Tim Peters from Alfred, Dan Kuhn, and our other visiting ceramic faculty, Neil Forrest all unloading and inspecting the booty(that doesn't sound right)... Anyways, I traded for a great tumbler from Dan and a mug and bottle from Justin...I will post those images down the line. Anyways again, here are images from the unloading and then some of my pieces from the firing too.

I will post again before I leave the bubble, I am still planning to fire at least one more cone 10 reduction in the Blaauw. That baby blue celedon that Dan whipped up is way to seductive not too try and get at least a half a kiln full. Good night and good luck.